Browsing: Memories

Using photos of babies to catch our attention is one of the most time-tested tricks of the marketing trade. Science gives us many reasons for this: The field of transcendence might explain from the point of view that babies amaze us because they are still in that blank state of mind that we long to our core to return to again: the primordial state of non-attachment to material things and social conventions. Babies enjoy life without thinking, going with the flow by instinct.

A key feature of some of the most ancient meditative practices was their focus on waking the self up to phenomena that happens within the brain at times when our senses, and with it our mind’s perception capabilities, are inactive rather than on numbing the mind from thinking, as most modern meditation practices have us do today. This is because the objective of ancient practices like the practice of clear light and samatha is to achieve self liberation. The freedom sought by these fields is that of freedom of perception. The practices train our minds to release itself from all…